Sunday shifts recur every week, and you know about each one a year ahead. They're often filled one at a time anyway, each as a separate request in the week before.
Weekend and evening shift coverage covers how Sunday differs from Saturday and how to set its hours and rate. This post covers one way to fill it: a standing Sunday roster, which is a small group of clinicians who each hold a repeating set of Sundays.
Why a Standing Roster Fits Sunday Urgent Care Staffing
The dates are fixed. A clinician can commit to a Sunday three months away if you ask now. They can't commit to one you ask about on Thursday.
The same clinicians return. Someone who works every fourth Sunday at your clinic is oriented once and knows the Sunday staff by name.
A pattern is easier to plan around than single dates. A clinician with a weekday job elsewhere can arrange family time around "every fourth Sunday." Scattered requests are harder to say yes to.
Your permanent staff know their share. When the rest of the Sundays belong to named roster members, permanent clinicians work the number their agreements state.
Count Your Sunday Urgent Care Staffing Slots
Start with the number of slots in a year. A slot is one shift for one role on one Sunday.
A year has 52 Sundays, and some years have 53. If your clinic runs one provider shift and one MA shift each Sunday, that's 52 provider slots and 52 MA slots.
Then subtract what your permanent staff cover under their agreements. Suppose three permanent clinicians each owe one Sunday a month. Three clinicians times twelve Sundays is 36 slots, which leaves 16 of the 52 provider slots for the roster.
Use your own agreements for this count. Changing how many weekend shifts a permanent clinician owes is a change to their employment terms, so take that question to your employment counsel.
Build the Sunday Staffing Rotation
There are two kinds of pattern.
Interval patterns count weeks: every second Sunday, or every fourth. They leave no Sunday unassigned. Four clinicians who each take every fourth Sunday cover one slot for the whole year.
Calendar patterns use the position in the month: the first Sunday, or the third. They're easy to remember, but they leave a gap. Some months have five Sundays. Nobody holds a fifth Sunday unless you assign it by name.
Whichever pattern you use, write out the actual dates. A clinician can check a list of dates against their own calendar. A rule like "second and fourth Sundays" leaves them to work the dates out themselves.
Build a rotation for each role you schedule on Sunday. A full provider roster doesn't cover an open MA slot.
Settle the Terms With Each Sunday Clinician
Agree on these before the first date, in writing.
- The dates, listed for a set period such as a quarter
- The hours and the rate for the shift
- How swaps work. A common rule is that the clinician finds a swap inside the roster and tells the roster owner before the date.
- How much notice you ask for when someone gives up a date
- Holiday Sundays. Easter always falls on a Sunday. Assign it and any other holiday weekend by name instead of leaving them to the pattern.
Offer the pattern when you recruit: "Every fourth Sunday, 9 to 5, through the end of March." Clinicians who've already worked a Sunday for you are the first people to ask. Building an urgent care float pool covers where to find more and how to credential them ahead of time.
Name a Backup and an Owner for Each Sunday
The roster members who aren't working a given Sunday are your likely backups. They're already credentialed at your clinic and they know how Sunday runs. Ask one of them to be the named backup for each date, and decide whether standby is paid.
Name who handles a Sunday morning call-out too. The manager who runs the same-day call-out playbook on a Tuesday may be off on Sunday. Write down who gets the call, who contacts the backup and who can decide to change the clinic's hours that day.
Carry Sunday's Open Items Into Monday
A roster clinician who works every fourth Sunday won't be back for a month. Results that come in on Monday and callbacks owed from Sunday need an owner who's in the building on Monday.
Have the Sunday clinician leave a written list at the end of the shift: what's open, what it's waiting on, and who owns it now. Add how to reach them if Monday's clinician has a question about a chart.
Review the Sunday Staffing Roster Each Quarter
Check four things at the end of each period:
- How many Sunday slots the roster filled, and how many you filled another way
- How many dates were swapped or given up
- Which members want to continue
- Whether the hours still match when your Sunday patients arrive
Send the next period's dates before the current list runs out. If a member leaves, recruit a replacement then, while the rest of the roster still covers the dates.
Rediworks is a self-service marketplace for urgent care locum shifts. For the Sundays your roster doesn't cover, you post the clinician type, dates, hours and rate yourself. Sign up to post shifts.